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Objectives and Projects for the JUGs Community

The Java User Groups Community aims to be the meeting point for JUGs, in order to create a better interaction among the groups, expanding and strengthening the Java movement worldwide.

Here, in the JUGs Community page, JUG leaders and JUG members can come to share information about creating, joining and running a JUG, and to work together in tools, projects and discussions that are important for the worldwide Java community.

As a community of JUGs, projects submitted to this community must represent groups of users, that focus primarily in Java and Java-related technologies. Each JUG project can have their own technical sub-projects.

What is a Java User Group?

Java User Groups are communities of Java developers, that join together to share experiences, work in common projects, search business opportunities, learn, teach and have fun.

A general division of groups are:

Java User Groups (JUG): these are presence JUGs, that promotes regular, in person meetings, along with whatever web presence they may have.

Virtual Java Community (VJC): those are virtual groups, that only exists on the web, and work trough mailing lists and web forums.

Both groups are generally described as Java User Groups, and at this point there's no reason to distinguish between these two categories in the JUGs Community.

Although JUGs can be organized in many ways and can offer many different form of services to its users, some common features that a JUG should have include:

Focus on Java Technology - to be considered a Java User Group, it must have Java Technology as a main focus.

Foster Participation - JUGs should encourage developers to participate. As such, a JUG must have a membership policy that allow for interested developers in their targeted audience to participate. Some form of participation has to be provided, be it presence meetings, discussion forums, mailings lists, etc.

Contacts: each JUG must have listed at least two contacts, with updated e-mails. A JUG that cannot be reached is of no value to its members.

Meetings: presence JUGs should have a minimum regularity of meetings. Hosting at least 3 presence meetings a year (presentations, trainings, round tables), and possibly a larger yearly event, is a general trend.

The Java User Groups Community

The JUGs Community congregates Java User Groups. All JUGs, presence or virtual, from anywhere in the world, can be part of this community. On the other hand, this community is only for Java User Groups, so, every group that requests to join this community must consider itself a JUG, and act accordingly.

The JUGs Community is an independent community, that is responsible to run itself, and that counts with the infrastructure support from java.net. Every JUG inside the JUGs Community is itself an independent community, and the JUGs Community will not interfere in how a JUG runs itself. As long as a JUG meets the requirements set forth by this community, it will be considered a member of the community.

.Every JUG can request to be linked to the JUGs Community, or to have a project in the JUGs Community.

Linking a JUG to the Community

At this moment, the JUGs Community follows the normal java.net link communities procedure . Besides the normal requirements for a linked community, only JUGs will be accepted.

Requesting a Project on the Community

Any JUG, regardless of having or not its own web site and infrastructure, can request to host a project in java.net, under the JUGs Community.

To be accepted, a JUG must request a project and specify clearly that it is a JUG, and describe how it intends to use its java.net project.

A JUG, as a independent community, has total control of its java.net project, and is free to structure and use its own project in any way it pleases, as long as it meets the general java.net Guiding Principles.

There are many ways that a JUG can use their java.net project. You can see some examples bellow.

To be accepted as a project in the JUGs Community, the java.net project must meet the following requirements:

Include at least the following information on your JUG's description:

Location and activity area, or the information that it is a virtual JUG

JUG Logo

JUG web site (if different from the java.net project)

Information about your mailing lists or forum describing how to participate in the JUGs discussions

If these requirements are not met, but the project is clearly a JUG project, then the project will be approved and will be included in the jugs-incubator project, where JUGs will have time to better adjust their projects.

Once the JUG has its project approved, the group can request additional sub-projects, that can be used for developing open source projects, general activities. The JUG is responsible for maintaining and running these subprojects.

Examples of uses for a Jug's java.net project

Some examples of how a JUG could use its project inside java.net:

Host the groups mailing lists or forum

Use the version control to maintain the pages and code for their web site

Use the file sharing to provide downloads of presentations and other material

Create the groups WikiWeb

Host it's own open source projects, be then JUG related tools or any other project the JUG is supporting

Support JUG activities, for example using Issue Tracking to track tasks that must be performed

If the JUG has its own web site, it can use the java.net project to support collaborative work, by linking the tools directly from their web site.

If the JUGs don't have its own infrastructure, it can use java.net as its main web site.

If a JUG wants to have its own domain name, it can simply redirect their chosen domain to the java.net site, or host its site somewhere else and point to java.net pages.

The JUG is responsible for its own project, so it can use it as it sees fit. The only requirement to use java.net infrastructure is to follow the general java.net Guiding Principles. Those principles are common sense principles for any one interested in the evolution of Java technology and a JUG in general already follows then. In any case, they apply only to the java.net project that the group has, it does not interferes in the way the JUG runs its activities.